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Mr. Straw: I agree with my hon. Friend; I am about to come to that point.
Let me deal with the issue of a referendum. It is important to remember that the Convention has no executive authority—none whatever. It will make final decisions on absolutely nothing—its deliberations are not definitive. Its task is to submit a constitutional text to member states next month at the Thessaloniki European Council. Whatever the Convention recommends, the decisions on whether there is a new constitution for Europe—then, crucially, what goes into it—do not depend on any operational institution of the European Union. No one should get obsessed about the fact that it will be called a constitution. Every party represented in this House has a constitution—that does not make it a nation state. I refer those who want further elucidation to an article that I wrote for The Economist two or three months ago, in which I try to expand on that. The content of any new treaties will depend solely on the Governments of the 25 sovereign states meeting together in an intergovernmental conference and taking decisions only by unanimity. That IGC negotiation is unlikely to conclude before the end of the year. Adoption of the draft treaty would then be subject to ratification by the different constitutional procedures of the member states.
In the United Kingdom, there is no hard and fast rule about which issues should go to referendum, and the weight of an issue—its gravity—cannot be the sole test. We have routinely held referendums on what most of us regard as second or third-order issues such as Sunday drinking in Wales. We have never held referendums—nor has any other country, as far as I am aware—on the most critical question that can ever come before any Government and Parliament, but particularly a democracy: whether to go to war. Although there is no iron rule, in practice we have had referendums to determine whether to change dramatically our constitutional arrangements. That has been the case for the past 30 years. Thus, we had the 1975 referendum on
whether to stay in or leave the European Union, and the late-1990s referendums on whether to have a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly or a London—or Hartlepool—mayor. The euro plainly comes into that category of changing our constitutional arrangements in an open-and-shut, dramatic way, even though the criteria for the Cabinet's recommendations are, as we all know, economic. In each of those examples, the choices are very stark and the alternative consequences are clear. One stays in the Common Market—as it was—or leaves it; one has a Scottish Parliament, or not; one has the euro, or sterling.What we—successive Governments—have not done is to have referendums on whether to approve changes to the existing institutions to which we belong. The Single European Act of 1986 and the Maastricht treaty of 1992 introduced big changes in the way in which the European Union ran—on any analysis, bigger changes than could possibly be introduced by the Convention even if everything in it was simply rubber-stamped by member states, which will not happen. They were big, and complex, changes. It is worth remembering that 12 members—that must be a significant majority—of the shadow Cabinet, including the right hon. Member for Devizes, who is shadow Foreign Secretary, and the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), as well as the right hon. Member for Wells, who is not in the shadow Cabinet, voted against a referendum on Maastricht, and did so for very good and eloquently expressed reasons. Similar arguments must apply to the product of the intergovernmental conference. Any changes will be complex overall. Let me be clear that we will not sign up to them unless we are clear that they meet our aims—to make the EU more effective and responsive—and do not compromise our national sovereignty.
I hope that the changes agreed by member states in the forthcoming IGC will involve important reforms, which we have discussed, to the way in which the EU operates internally. However, they will not entail any significant change in the relationship between the United Kingdom as a sovereign state and the European Union as an association of nation states. It follows that any likely overall reform package will not be on a par, in terms of importance, with, for example, whether we keep our pound sterling or share our currency with the euro. As I said, the IGC's product will be far less significant than either Maastricht or the Single European Act. Moreover—this is very important—the IGC and Convention product will be, on any basis, far less significant than the Bill in terms of the future of Europe and the future of this country. I have heard no calls from right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative Benches for a referendum on the contents of the Bill. Of course they do not intend to do that, because they are in favour of the Bill, but against the Convention.
The IGC negotiations should result in reforms that enable the Union to respond effectively to voters' concerns. As we all know, one of the issues that animates European voters and Governments alike is Europe's—not necessarily ours, in fact far from it—relatively weak economic performance. We have sought to reflect our commitment to economic dynamism in Europe in the changes that are made by clause 2, which will make a modest, but important contribution in that respect. The
point of clause 2 is to grant nationals from the eight central and eastern European accession countries the same rights to work in the UK from 1 May next year as are enjoyed by nationals of the existing member states. As I told the House earlier, nationals of Cyprus and Malta will enjoy those rights automatically on accession. That measure is in our national interest. It will attract the workers we need in key sectors. It will ensure that they can work here without restrictions and need not be a burden on the public purse. It makes sense financially, as we can focus resources on the real immigration problems, rather than trying to stop EU citizens enjoying normal EU rights.Independent studies, including recent independent research commissioned by the Home Office, suggests that there will not be a substantial increase in immigration from the accession countries that poses a threat to standards of living and employment in any region of the UK or to any occupation. That is because although there will be rights of migration here, what is bound to happen is that the economies of the 10 countries, especially the eight that I mentioned, will expand, and as a result the demand for labour in them will increase. For those who are concerned about the matter, I say this: we should bear in mind the experience of Spain and Portugal in joining the European Union. It is worth remembering that we now take Spain and Portugal for granted as countries that are on the same level as ourselves, but they were not in that situation at all when they joined the European Union in the mid-1980s.
I shall give some figures for Spain and France. When Spain joined the European Community in 1986, there were more than 100,000 Spanish workers in France. Within eight years, that figure had fallen to 35,000. What is fascinating about Spain and the United Kingdom is that there were many Spanish people in the United Kingdom before Spain joined the European Union; now, there are hundreds of thousands of British people in Spain—the migration has been the other way.
Mike Gapes (Ilford, South): I was in Portugal in 1985, and I recall Lisbon being an incredibly poor city. If one goes to Portugal today, one can see the massive transformation that has been brought about by membership of the European Union and the single currency. Does my right hon. Friend think that that is likely to happen in all the other accession countries as they join the EU and the single currency?
Mr. Straw: I agree with my hon. Friend, and I believe that that will happen. If, however, there are problems, and we need to change the regulations that we introduce, clause 2(2) allows for the regulations to be changed for any individual country, or as a whole, or for the concession to be withdrawn.
It is true that recent progress towards enlargement has not been entirely smooth. I regret that in Cyprus it did not prove possible for a settlement to be secured before Cyprus signed the treaty of accession on 16 April. We repeatedly sought to facilitate an effective negotiation between the two parties, Greece and Turkey. I pay tribute to the Governments of Greece and Turkey, who played a commendable role in trying to secure a satisfactory conclusion, to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his special
representative de Soto, and to our special representative, Lord Hannay. A settlement was not possible, however, so Greek Cypriot Cyprus—the state that we recognise—is part of the European Union and the Turkish part is not.
Mr. Andrew Love (Edmonton): Does my right hon. Friend welcome the opening up of the border between the two communities in Cyprus? We hope that negotiations will start in the very near future, and that they will lead to the solution that he is looking for.
Mr. Straw: I do, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's work in trying to secure a rapprochement between the two communities. He knows better than almost anyone in the House that the diaspora of both Turkish and Greek Cypriots is a very important constituency for the political processes in Cyprus. The recent opening up of the borders has been terrific, and has provided people on both sides with hope regarding what is to come, and shown them how, after years of enmity, they could live in peace with a more open border.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and I have agreed that the European convention on human rights should be extended to the United Kingdom's sovereign base areas on Cyprus, with effect from 1 May 2004. This is good news, particularly for the 7,000 Cypriot citizens who live in the sovereign base areas, who will enjoy the same human rights protection as other Cypriots.
I very much hope that, at some point during the next Parliament, the Government will be able to introduce a Bill to endorse the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007. Turkey should follow thereafter. A state in which the overwhelming majority of people are Muslim, but which is secular, and accepts our conception of liberal democratic values, would strengthen Europe's ties with the Islamic world. I think that the whole House is united—I hope it is—in encouraging Turkey to continue its programme of reform so that we shall be able to judge it on the same basis as all the other countries in terms of whether it is ready to come into the European Union. We also look forward to the accession, on the same strict criteria, of an increasing number of Balkan states in the former Republic of Yugoslavia.
Enlargement, as all the parties to the treaty have declared, is a continuous, inclusive and, I believe, irreversible process. This current enlargement, which is of unparalleled dimension and significance, will broaden the horizons of European unity, enhance the United Kingdom's influence in the European Union, and increase security and prosperity across the continent, to the benefit of all European Union citizens. I commend the Bill to the House.
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